Why You Should Be Checking Your Social Security Statement

Let’s talk about Social Security and maybe a little bit different than we usually talk about it. Normally we’re talking about how it fits in your income plan in retirement. Today let’s take it a step back and just talk about looking at your Social Security statement. And this is for everybody out there, whether you’re young, many years away from retirement, coming up on retirement or even in retirement. These are some important maybe tips and stuff to consider. So if you have work history, likely you have a Social Security statement out there. You know even if you’re 20, 25 years old, you likely have this statement out there. Now, some years ago the Social Security Administration stopped sending statements out via mail to anybody younger than the age of 60 pretty much. But you can go online and create an account and download that statement and look at it right online at anytime. I’d encourage people at least annually to go and check that. Here’s some of the things you should be looking at. One, it’s going to give you an estimate based on some scenarios of what they expect you to receive when you retire. Also, it’s going to give you the information, what happens if you become disabled and what you’re eligible for. What happens if you pass away, what is your survivors eligible for? And also, maybe most importantly especially for those not retired yet is check your earnings record. If you’ve looked at your statement form, there’s a long list, depending upon how many years you’ve worked of all of your different earnings. Make sure those look accurate and they’re being entered correctly. You kow maybe one or two incorrect reportings there could dramatically change your Social Security. Those reportings is what your Social Security is going to based off of. Social Security can be a huge asset in your retirement. Think of it as a cumulative benefit. If you kind of, as you do that, to me it kind of is an eye opening experience. Let’s just say there’s a fictional person out there that’s going to get $2K a month from Social Security in retirement. And they’re going to be retired or collecting that benefit for 30 years. That’s a total, $2K a month, $24K a year, 30 years. That’s a total of $720K of Social Security collected. That’s a significant benefit when you look at that over time. So that’s a big piece of a lot of people’s retirement. So it’s important to take a little time and just take a few minutes every year, go online, check your record. Make sure everything looks accurate and keep track of that for yourself. You know it’s a great way just to stay on top of that and then if there is an error, you can go in and work with the Social Security Administration and correct that before you get all the way to retirement. Once again, hopefully that information was helpful. And if you need help with that or any guidance on Social Security, give us a call at the number on the screen. We’d love to sit down with you and walk through that with you and help you plan to retire well.